Pàgines

dilluns, 2 de gener de 2012

Iran test fires missile and unveils nuclear breakthrough*

Responding defiantly to the imposition of fresh US sanctions, officials in
Tehran announced that they had successfully produced and tested nuclear fuel
rods in an advance that Western experts have long stated is beyond Iran's
technological capabilities.

If true, the development would represent an important step in Iran's efforts
to complete the nuclear fuel cycle, bringing it significantly closer to
being able to produce a nuclear bomb.

Iranian state television reported that the rods had been inserted into the
core of the Tehran Research Reactor, where the country's most highly
enriched uranium is stored, ostensibly for the development of
cancer-treating isotopes.

At the beginning of last year, Iran
claimed that it had begun the process of creating fuel plates and rods at
its nuclear plant in the central city of Isfahan. The claims were given
scant credence in the West because the ability to manufacture the rods is
possessed by only a handful of major nuclear powers.

The process of making a fuel rod requires the conversion of enriched uranium
into uranium dioxide powder, which must then be pressed into small pellets
that are inserted into thin metal tubes. These are then assembled in
clusters for use in the core of a nuclear reactor. The rods can be used for
civilian purposes, but if reprocessed could produce fuel for a nuclear
weapon.

Sceptics said Iran lacked the technology to disperse the fuel evenly through
the fuel matrix.

State media outlets boasted that the breakthrough would confound Tehran's
enemies.

"This great achievement will perplex the West, because the Western
countries had counted on a possible failure of Iran to produce nuclear fuel
plates," the Tehran Times wrote. Western analysts remained dubious, however, pointing to the Islamist regime's
record of exaggerating its capabilities in the past.

As Iran celebrated one purported advance, senior naval officers announced that
a new medium-range missile capable of evading radar detection had been
test-fired in the Persian Gulf, escalating tensions in one of the world's
most sensitive and strategic waterways.

The missile launch, conducted as part of an Iranian naval exercise, came days
after Tehran threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf's
narrowest point, if the US and the EU were to impose sanctions on its energy
sector.

With up to a third of the world's oil tanker traffic passing through the Gulf,
such a move would send energy prices soaring and pose a serious threat to
the global economy.

Undeterred by the threat, President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law
tough new sanctions that will comprehensively target Iran's central bank for
the first time.

The move brings Western powers closer to deploying the most potent weapons in
their diplomatic arsenals.

Until now Western powers have shied away from sanctioning either Iran's
central bank or its energy sector because of the devastating consequences
such actions would have on the country's economy.

But amid growing warnings that Iran is closer than ever to building a nuclear
weapon, the EU and the United States have shown greater willingness to heed
Israel's pleas for truly "crippling" sanctions.

Mr Obama's announcement caused Iran's currency, the rial, to plunge to record
lows against the US dollar, raising the prospect of soaring inflation.

The European Union has hinted that it could go even further than the United
States by imposing sanctions on Iranian energy exports within weeks.